Paul, Yep spot on but I take your point about this class focusing more on naturally occurring energy. It's interesting stuff! A lot of what you are covering are points we are looking at to see if we can interject our type of tech into these markets or applications. Thanks for a good intro, see you in class tomorrow!

On the light in Boston I wanted to say that in waterheaters that have a standing pilot they use a thermalcoouple to actualy power the relay so if the pilot went out the valve would close. I would think they could use one that was modified to be perhaps parabolic in shape and coated to reflect visible light but absorb IR for heat to power the thermalcouple.

Thanks on the Betavoltaics definition. I'd never heard this term before, although I know that the isotope generation is used on various space craft, althogh I'm not familiar with the details or whether such systems are commercially available.

I had heard that harvesting energy from a commercial wireless source (broadcast or Pwr co) without consent is stealing. Even from a cellphone. Even though wireless is all around us, I have not seen any legal position regarding harvesting indiscriminately.

@MarkSHarris - Betavoltaics are energy sources whereby the energy is obtained from an isotope that is used in conjuction with a semiconductor. This way the energy is subject to the isotope (half)life as opposed to standard batteries etc...

Desnotes: Good question. I have heard of schemes that use air core inductive coils to steal electricity, but one has to be under a high voltage power line. And the electric utility did consider it stealing. Howwever, if a UAV flew near a power line long enough to charge its battery, I doubt anyone would care.

This is a very interesting application for us as a medical device design/manufacturer. With devices getting smaller and heading toward personal monitoring, we have to keep in mind various ways that they can be powered by the person wearing them. Thanks for an interesting first day!

Blood moves over the entire body with the same pump stroke, not just one section of vessel. At a bare minimum the acceleration of the entire mass needs to be accounted for. Also - vein walls are distended storing energy.

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Hi - what are the platform requirements for the lectures? I will be at a trade show on at least one day and it would be *great* to be able to use a small android tablet instead of a full laptop to attend.

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